Page:An account of a savage girl.djvu/10

seeing her in several different conversations that she had with a Scotch gentleman of distinction then at Paris, who was introduced to her by M. de la Condamine, and who again mentioned her to most of the British persons of distinction then at Paris, to some of whom he likeways introduced her. To that gentleman Le Blanc confirmed with her own mouth, in the hearing of the translator, every circumstance in this relation; mentioning at the same time several particulars not here taken notice of. The translator likewise attended the same gentleman in a journey which he made, merely with a view of searching to the bottom every circumstance of this curious history, all the way from Rheims to Chalons, in a convent of which town Le Blanc was placed very soon after being taken; and from thence to Songi, the place of her capture. In that journey he had occasion to hear all these particulars amply confirmed, both by the abbess of the convent in which she had resided at Chalons, as well as by several other persons of that place, and likewise by several of the inhabitants of the village of Songi, who had been witnesses to her capture, and to the facts which immediately followed. These persons too, particularly the abbess, mentioned several little anecdotes of Le Blanc omitted in this narrative; such as some instances of her surprising agility in climbing walls, and running on the tops of houses, and of her imitating the notes of singing birds, such as the

nightingale,